Scam Artist

I was at daycare waiting for Ray. A young man at the counter was talking to Kristen, the Just Fur Pets manager. At his feet was a plastic bin filled with unidentified, dried cow-parts in plastic bags. He was pedaling his wares.

"Dogs love these," he said, holding out a bag of long, thin, tubular thingies.

Kristin took the bag and examined the contents. He bent over the bin and rooted through it a bit and brought out another bag of thingies.

"These are another favorite," he said. "I've never met a dog that didn't like these."

Just then Ray was led out by one of the guys that works at the daycare. Ray immediately headed to the bin and stuck his head in, sniffing interestedly.

"Now there's a dog with perfect timing," said the dried-cow-part salesman.

He zipped open the bag with the long, thin, tubular thingies, extracted one and held it out in Ray's general direction. Ray, being a blind dog, didn't see anything and so didn't try to take it from the young man's hand. The young man looked a bit confused. I put my hands on either side of Ray's face and turned it so that the cow-part was right under his nose.

"Ray doesn't see," said Kristen to the cow-part salesman who looked even more confused.

Ray gingerly took the long, thin thingy, turned his head a fraction and dropped it on the floor, disdain writ large on his face. I started laughing

The dried-cow-part salesman looked slightly stunned and a bit nonplussed. He turned back to Kristen. "Of course I can't guarantee that 100 percent of dogs will like them," he said with a grin. "But nine out of 10 dogs do."

He bent over his plastic bin and came out with another plastic bag. He zipped the bag open and this time extracted a dried part that looked like beef jerky.

"Dogs love these," he said holding the jerky in Ray's direction, "Try this."

I again took Ray's head and turned it in the direction of the jerky. Ray took it in his teeth, turned a fraction of an inch and dropped it on the floor. I couldn't stop laughing. Kristen was laughing too. She's seen Ray do the exact same thing just about every time I buy him something from the store.

The salesman was opening another bag. This time he withdrew a small dog treat. He handed me the treat and said, "Here, this is lamb, try giving him this."

I took the treat and held it under Ray's nose. He sniffed at it for a second then turned away and started his usual shopping along the closest store shelf.

The cow-part salesman threw in the towel and turned back to Kristen to make his sales pitch. I gathered the unwanted (and now unusable from a sales perspective) chews from the floor, pocketed the lamb treat and dragged Ray away and out the door. I was still laughing.

When we got home, I dropped the chews and the lamb treat on the rug in the front hallway. Ray immediately picked up the long, thin, tubular thingy in his mouth. He joyfully threw it in the air a couple of times then settled in for a good chew.

Do you believe I got this for FREE?

Ray and his booty

I fed Ray and retreated upstairs to change out of my work clothes. A couple of minutes later, Ray showed up, this time the jerky chew was grasped firmly between his teeth. He flung the chew around a bit, trying to tempt me with a game of keepaway, then carried his new chew into the hall, settled in on his favorite rug, and ate it. I noticed later that the lamb treat was also gone.

Heh, heh, heh. Cow-part salesmen are so gullible.

(notice the chew hanging out of the corner of Ray's mouth)